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Women's cap

Country:

Vietnam

Nation:

Dao Son Dau

Female

The small group of the Dao people, also called the Dao Son Dau lives in the province of Enbai of northern Vietnam. The Dao Son Dau are also called the "Dao with belted pants". Though I know nothing about the design of their pants, their cap is an amazing phenomenon, because it is made of women's hair. Hair is pressed and stitched together so securely that the headgear is not falling apart. On both sides it is outlined with a hoop of silver circles, and at the top to the base is attached a round silver ornament in the shape of a circle with a ten-ray star in the middle. The resulting artwork is attached to hair with a silver pin, adorned covered with ornaments. Such headdresses are now found only in the most remote mountainous villages where the Dao grow rice and tea on terraced fields, or in the small antique shops in the streets of old Hanoi.